However, a Supreme Court decision in MGM vs. Record companies don’t have the time, resources nor motivation to persecute individuals who copy music for their own use and have expressed as much publically. The law is not incredibly clear on these issues, but in general, you don’t have to worry about going to jail for copying music for your own personal use. For instance, is it illegal to copy a CD to your computer (ripping) and then sync the songs to your iPod? Is it illegal to burn a mix CD for a friend? Is it illegal to burn a backup copy of a CD for yourself? With this in mind, a certain amount of paranoia is understandable. Headlines from the past few years have covered the arrest and prosecution of various file sharing kingpins and music piracy offenders, landing them in jail or slapping them with huge fines. And just like radio stations must pay performance royalties and movie theaters must pay licensing fees, everyday users cannot distribute music without authorization and permission from those who own the rights to it. Media, although intangible, does have value. The free flow of music between users is directly at odds with copyright law, as it should be. Digital music files and encoding as well as peer-to-peer file sharing have revolutionized the way that music can be distributed, much to the chagrin to the music industry.
In the past decade, much controversy has arisen from the newfound portability of music.
